
MORRISTOWN, 



NEW JERSEY, 



JULY 4, 1859, 



BY 



RICHARD BUSTEED 



NEW YORK : 
CHAS. W. BAKER, PRINTER, 29 BEEKMAN STREET. 
1859. 



1 



OEATION 



DELIVERED AT 



MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY, 



JULY 4th, 1859. 



BY 



RICHARD BUSTEED. 



NEW YORK : 
CHAS. W. BAKER, PRINTER. 

1859. 



. 'A S? 



OEATION" 



Men and Women of New Jersey: 

Morristovvii is a fitting place to celebrate the Fourth 
of July. Here, eighty-three years ago, were pitched the 
tents of the citizen soldiery. On these hills the army of 
Trenton was encamped. Hither Washington came after 
the victory at Princeton. From this eminence he 
surveyed the land of his love in the grasp of a tyrant, 
and planned its safety and redemption. Here he re- 
ceived the hospitality of those who inhabited the 
homes you now enjoy. The earth on which you stand 
was dyed with some of the best blood that ever flowed. 
This green grass was the bed upon which tired warriors 
sank to rest. From out these valleys hurried recruits 
to join the American standard. Here mothers and 
wives bade husbands and sons haste to the war. The 
place is certainly most auspicious for the occasion. The 
spii'it of the revolution is the atmosphere that surrounds 
us. 

There are some memories which refuse to grow old, 
and some recollections which are ever being freshly 
distilled in the alembic of the heart. No circumstances 



weaken their hold. They grow with the mind's growth 
and strengthen with its strength, — and first among 
such is the great memory which our people annually 
commemorate. 1776 is not of the past alone. It is as 
much of the present and yet more of the future. The 
Declaration of American Independence which will be 
read today in every hamlet, town and city of our 
Country will fall upon as gladly listening ears as those 
which first heard the English language sanctified in its 
use. Hearts will throb as wildly today as did those of 
that little knot of Americans in Independence Hall when 
each pledged to the support of its statements his life, 
his fortune, and his sacred honor. This is as it should 
be, and I shall require no stronger proof of our national 
degeneracy than a disposition on the part of the people 
to treat with indifference that period of our history. 
I do not share in the apprehensions which are expressed 
in some quarters that our rejoicings on the recurrence of 
this fete-day may expose us to the ridicule, perchance 
the contempt, of our neighbours. And what if they do ? 
We have survived something more severe than the 
shafts of ridicule. We have triumphed over leaden 
bullets, and we must be thin-skinned indeed if we can- 
not endure paper pellets. I do not expect that others 
will agree with us in regarding the day which finally 
established our claims to be considered an independent 
power as the day which secured the inalienable right of 
freedom to mankind. Neither do I hope to please or 
silence the hypercritical cynics who are to be found 



among ourselves and who think, or affect to think, that 
whatever we have of good must be imported. I insist 
that in everything which tends to the highest civiHza- 
tion the people of these United States are preeminent. 
I do not pretend that the social and political pruning 
hook may not, in skilful and considerate hands, be used 
to our advantage, but I am satisfied with the progress 
we have made and the prospects before us, and if the 
experience of the past furnishes a safe criterion for 
opinion, what a vista of greatness does the future of this 
people present. Only eighty-three years ago the tocsin 
of liberty was first sounded in the ears of our infant Re- 
public; only eighty-three years ago in thrilling accents did 
the heralds of freedom " proclaim liberty throughout all 
the land to all the inhabitants thereof" What was then 
a tender saphng with fibrous roots and feeble hold, has 
become the chief tree of the forest. Under its wide 
spreading shade thirty millions of freemen assemble to- 
day in peace and security. What was then a community 
of feeble States has become an aggregate of powerful 
Commonwealths. In this brief space sparsely settled 
colonies have grown into the stature and strength of 
populous empires. This is not mere rhetoric. It is the 
truth of history. Does it then require the gift of pro- 
phecy truly to predict that the shadow of unparalelled 
nationality is already upon us, and that if we are as 
faithful to posterity as our ancestry has been to us we 
shall fill the great outline which destiny has marked ? 
" We are Romans" cried Paul to the Philippian sailor 



6 



in answer to the magisterial mandate by which, after 
having been "beaten openly, uncondemned," and cast 
into prison, it was sought to thrust him out privily. I 
can almost hear the intrepid Christian soldier as he ex- 
claims, "Xay, verily, but let them come themselves and 
fetch us out.-' And the sergeants told his words unto 
the magistrates ; and they feared when they heard that 
they w^ere Romans. And they came and besought their 
prisoners. Polite requests took the place of insolent 
demands ; the enslaved were treated like conquerors. 
It was a great thing to be a freeman of the ancient 
Republic ; her honor was pledged for the safety and 
protection of her children, and wherever they went 
their claims were respected and acknowledged. "Take 
heed what thou doest ; for this man is a Roman " said 
the centurion to the chief captain who had commanded 
Paul to be brought into the castle to be scourged. 
" Tell me, " said the officer to the captive bound with 
thongs, " art thou a Roman ? " And he answered him, 
"Yea." The captain replied, "With a great sum 
obtained I this freedom." And Paul said, " But I was 
free born.'^ And the chief captain was afraid after he 
knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound 
him. This is not a fancy sketch altho' it occurred more 
than eighteen hundred years ago. The account of it 
comes to us from contemporaneous writers, thro' inspired 
sources and by divine historians, I never read it that it 
does not send my tingling blood in impetuous currents 
through excited veins. And yet I love to read it. 



Even at this day it confers hereditary nobility upon the 
Lazzaroni of Italy. 

And if such privileges and pride attached to Roman 
citizenship in anno domini 60, what shall be said of the 
glory and power of American citizenship in our day ? 
"We are Romans" was a defiant taunt. ''We are 
Americans" is a prouder boast. 

Connected with our political status are duties and 
responsibilities of corresponding gravity and charac- 
ter ; — duties and responsibilities of hourly increasing 
seriousness, and it is to those I intend to call your at- 
tention. 

You have been good enough to invite me to address 
you, and, while I may expose myself to criticism for the 
manner of my performance, I shall not be obliged to 
ask indulgence on account of prolixity. The highest 
effects of oratory are produced by the most sententious 
brevity, which is not only the soul of wit, but the sub- 
stance of sense. I shall not, therefore, fall into the er- 
ror of making a long speech. I had much rather make 
a strong one. All I hope to accomplish is to set you 
thinking. This is the great office of speech, and hearing 
is the prime minister of thought. 

The day and the lessons it teaches form a compre- 
hensive subject for the exercise of our intellectual facul- 
ties. Of the day, and of the lessons it teaches, I propose 
now to speak. 

Of the day what shall be said ? What can be said 
that has not already been said ? What can be said to 



8 

make it more glorious in the annals of time ? You can- 
not adorn the rose of the garden or the lily of the field 
by the most elaborate decoration. No amount of gilding 
will add brightness to refined gold, and no speech of 
men, however ornate or forcible, can add anything to 
the spontaniety and enthusiasm with which we regard 
this day. It stands by itself, like the diamond in its 
glistening beauty, shedding its rich light upon all the 
calendar, but itself incapable of receiving lustre from 
any. The day which gave civil and religious liberty to 
a hemisphere ; the birth-day of constitutional freedom ; 
the Sabbath of the political week. Do we not well to 
honor it? May we not indulge in rhapsody as we con- 
template what has been wrought and enjoyed through 
its instrumentality. There are themes upon which it is 
" impious to be cool," — and this is one of them. There 
are occasions which justify a frenzy of devotion,— and 
this is one of them. Let then the sound of our gladness 
be heard. Let the Atlantic echo meet the echo of the 
Pacific, as the nation's voice travels westward and east- 
ward across the land. 

" And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, 
The trumpet to the cannoneer without, 
The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth." 

There is a deep meaning in the clangor. Every tor- 
pedo is significant ; every rocket is filled with Prometh- 
ean fire, and is lighted at liberty's own altar. Every 
American is a high priest of freedom, and the flag of 
our country his canonical robe. 



9 



Such is the day ! What are the lessons it teaches ? 
The first inference which I derive from it is the import- 
ance of being right. It was the conviction of their right 
which induced the appeal of our forefathers to and their 
reliance upon the protection of the God of battles. It 
is this which animates and inspires the Declaration of 
American Independence. It is this which makes that 
declaration something more than a compilation of 
" glittering generalities." It was this which supported 
the soldiers of the Revolution, under circumstances of 
bodily discomfort and privation, which have no parallel 
in history, either in respect of the extent of those dis- 
advantages or the success which attended their arms. 
Shoeless, ragged and hungry they met and they con- 
quered the best disciplined and best provided troops in 
the world. Each man had asked himself " what stronger 
breast-plate than a heart untainted " can a soldier have ? 
Each, as he grasped his weapon, gazed with unblenching 
cheek on the serried hosts of the foe, and upon the his- 
toric shaft which commemorates the valor and the vir- 
tues of each^ Truth has emblazoned 

" Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just ; 
And he but naked, tho' lock'd up in steel. 
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted." 

As in war, so in peace, the first condition of success 
is to be right. In whatever enterprise engaged, wheth- 
er resisting by strong hand the arm of the oppressor, 
or peacefully carrying into effect plans for government, 
everything depends upon this. For a brief period ih^ 



10 

wrong may seem to prosper ; the wicked may appear 
to triumph, but right is invincible, and soon or late in 
the contest she will assert and maintain to the end her 
power. No man is strong whose purposes are unlaw- 
ful, and none is inconsiderable or weak whose designs 
are virtuous and patriotic. The history of the race in 
all ages is confirmatory of these propositions. From 
the hour when wrong-doing made the first cowards 
hide themselves among the trees of Eden down to the 
present, fear has ever paralyzed the hand of crime. 
Belshazzar was not troubled in his feast as he sacrile- 
giously tasted wine from the golden vessels of the 
temple, until the fingers of a man's hand came forth 
and traced upon the wall in m3^stic characters, the pro- 
phecy of his fate. What made the Chaldean monarch's 
countenance change ? Why did his thoughts trouble 
him so that the joints of his loins were loosed ? Why 
smote his knees together ? He knew not the interpre- 
tation of the writing. For aught that appeared it con- 
tained a prediction of the continuance of his throne 
and a perpetuation of his power. Ah ! the king was 
before the astrologers in dissolving the mystery. The 
sense of his impiety and guilt spoke while the sooth- 
sayers were yet silent. His conscience had pronounced 
his doom ere the magicians had acknowledged their 
ignorance, or the queen had suggested that the prophet 
be called. 

The next lesson taught by today, is the importance 
of unity. Our national name and our national motto 



11 

are suggestive of this. Political history points us to 
the separate States of Italy, to the independent States 
forming the Germanic Confederation, and to the separ- 
ate republics of South America as instances, among 
many others, of people having something like a common 
origin, confederating against invasion from a common 
enemy, but keeping alive intestine broils and wars in 
in which the strongest vanquishes the weakest, only to 
be itself in time overthrown and despoiled. Turn we 
from these to ourselves. Not only are we one in name, 
but in fact. The United States of America is our na- 
tional designation, and the indissolubihty of the union 
of the States, the key-stone of our Government. Sep- 
aration involves annihilation. Secession is a simple 
absurdity. Our pride and self-respect will prevent the 
former, and our good sense and patriotism always save 
us from the latter. The man who in our day talks of 
dissolving the Union, I care not whether he comes from 
north or south of Mason & Dixon's line, is a fool. His 
** speech betrayeth him." The representative in Con- 
gress who contemplates such dissolution possible, had 
better return to the vocation in life to which it pleased 
God to call him. He never can be a statesman. The 
perpetuation of our government depends upon some- 
thing stronger than human will. The American people 
are trustees as well as beneficiaries. We are deposi- 
tories of freedom for mankind, and have neither the 
right nor the power to waste or misuse the inheritance. 
The estate is entailed ; and while there remains a single 



12 



chain to be broken, or a solitary captive to mourn, the 
Union will not be dissolved. Our alliance is of Divine 
authority, and is perpetual. What God hath joined 
together, man cannot put asunder. The conjugal rela- 
tion is upon us, and the friends of the family can rest 
assured that Union-savers, whether men or women, 
ecclesiastics or laymen, are only mischief breeders. 

We cannot lay too much stress upon the importance 
of cultivating principles tending to secure the unity of 
our people. Upon this depends much of our individual, 
and all of our national prosperity. We stand united ; 
divided we must fall. 

All over the land then, from the waters of the Bay 
of Fundy to the shores of the Mexican Sea, let men, 
and women and children join to sing : 

" Cedar of Maine and Greorgia Pine, 
Here together shall combine." 

Let it be kept before the people. In the Senate, at 
the Forum, from the Pulpit be it proclaimed. "The 
Union must and shall be preserved." At any hazard, 
at every cost. All else is secondary and must be disposed 
of with reference to this. " This is paramount. However 
w^e may differ as to modes of Government, or as to the 
men who shall administer it ; — -whether we idolize Clay 
or reverence Jackson ; whether we rally as Democrats or 
vote as Republicans ; — upon this great question of the 
-perpetuation of our Union there can be no disagreement. 
Who dissents is a traitor — a foe to God and the race. 
"Let no such man be trusted." 



18 

From such unity will inevitably flow the next of the 
lessons which this day teaches. Justice and unity will 
be accompanied by amity. Amity in its enlarged sense 
as applied to individuals, societies and nations. Amity 
as including that good understanding which is the foun- 
dation of unity, and which can alone preserve harmony 
among ourselves, and render valuable our friendship to 
others. There is a wide field for the exercise of our 
mutual charity. I do not mean that species of the 
virtue which consists in alms-giving to the poor, or in 
beneftictions to the distressed. The youngest member 
of our political union stands not more in need of the 
rest than all stand in need of her. The swamps of 
Georgia point to granaries filled with rice — the blank 
prairies of Western Illinois and Minnesota tell of the 
full corn in the ear — the forests of Maine are decked 
with the lordly pine and the waving cedar — the snows 
on the mountains of Sierra Nevada are but the cover- 
lids of the gold which glistens in the sands of California. 
Every State in the Union gives to the other a quid pro 
quo in material advantages for the benefits it receives 
from the association ; none is a pensioner upon the 
bounty of any, but each owes to all the duty of a 
comprehensive charity. Without this we shall be 
miserable at home and suspected abroad. Our bicker- 
ings will give force to the idea that our union is a mere- 
tricious one ; our jealousies and heart-burnings will be 
seized upon and held up to mankind as evidence that 
the experiment of a government based upon State 



14 



rights has failed. Rivals will be insolent in proportion 
as our domestic alienations increase. Instead of being 
prosperous we shall be impoverished. 

Upon the other hand, the practice towards each other 
of the highest amity will induce and secure for us the 
admiration and respect of competitors, * and the love 
and gratitude of all who hopefully look to our career. 

I know of no responsibility attaching to American 
citizenship greater than this. To treat the citizens of 
each State liberally ; to pass candid judgment ; to think 
and speak favorably ; to place the best construction 
upon acts which the case will admit of ; is all involved 
in fealty to the Constitution, and embraced within my 
idea of amity. Let us see to it that our charity meets 
the apostolic test, that it " suffereth long and is kind." 
Who claims to love his country and yet seeks to dis- 
turb the rights secured to his fellows by the consti- 
tution and laws, is a base pretender. Who boasts of 
his devotion to our form of government and yet in- 
veighs against the compromises upon which that consti- 
tution was achieved, is a hypocritical braggart. From 
all such true patriotism turns aside, and finds her ac- 
credited sons only among those who have interwoven 
the golden rule into their political creed. 

I might, if the occasion warranted it, proceed ad in- 
finitum, to speak of other lessons which this day teaches. 
But I forbear. I am too well acquainted with the 
history of the people of New Jersey to suppose it 
necessary. I appreciate the relation which that history 



15 

bears to American liberties, and feel assured that her 
patriotism will not die out except with "the last sylla- 
ble of recorded time." 

Men of New Jersey ! your brethren are not forgetful 
of the glorious deeds done in your gallant State. Mon- 
mouth and Princeton and Trenton and Morristown are 
names sacred to freedom. Your battle-fields once red 
with gore give you title to consideration. Time will 
not dim the perspective of Washington crossing the 
Delaware, and our memories will continue to cherish 
your fortitude, bravery and exploits as among the most 
sacred recollections of the historic page, for be assured 
that 

" In the wreck of Noble lives, 
SomethiQg immortal still survives." 

I felicitate you upon your past, and from it derive an 
augury for your hereafter. May this be as splendid in 
peace as that was brilliant in war — may the blessings 
which your forefathers contributed to gain descend to 
latest posterity, and the place you hold in the Confedera- 
tion be ever as worthily and as well filled as now. So 
shall we accomplish our destiny in fraternal companion- 
ship, while each strives to outvie the other in devotion 
to the Union. 

Thou, too, sail on, ohl ship of State! 
Sail on, Union, strong and great.' 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
We know what master laid thy keel. 



16 

What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, . 
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge, and what a heat 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope. 
Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
'Tis of the wave and not the rock ; 
Tis but the flapping of the sail, 
And not a rent made by the gale ! 
In spite of rock and tempest's roar. 
In spite of false lights on the shore, 
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea. 
Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee, 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears> 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee — are all with thee I 



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